Torrin dropped next to Eralynn, and spoke the command word that caused her magical rope to unfasten itself from the piton they’d driven into the rock above. The rope snaked down toward him, coiling itself neatly at his feet. He picked it up and passed it to Eralynn.
“Do we have much farther to go?” he asked.
Eralynn shook her head. “We’re here,” she said with a jerk of her chin, indicating a spot farther along the canyon floor. “Wyrmtrap portal is just around that spur of rock.” She shoved the rope into her pack, then loosened the bindings on the short sword that hung from her belt. She also checked the throwing dagger that was strapped to her ankle over the leg of her loose-fitting, stone gray trousers.
Torrin glanced around. They were some distance from Eartheart, which lay to the southwest, its own towers looking like a massive cluster of stalagmites on the lip of the great canyon that comprised East Rift. Hammergate was a smaller knob, pressed tight to one of Eartheart’s massive city walls. Directly west, the sun was a ball of orange light above the western wall of the Underchasm.
Torrin shielded his eyes from the sun and tried to pick out the mote that he and Kier had flown to. Had anyone else visited it yet? Was the gold gone? The thought had gnawed at him, day and night, ever since his return to the city.
“What are you looking at?” Eralynn asked.
“Nothing,” Torrin lied. Eralynn was the one person, out of all of his dwarf friends, who came closest to being his shield brother. Or, to be more accurate, his shield sister. He’d been struggling with whether to tell her about his find. Did he really want to split the gold with her? It was a greedy thought, that, and one that made him feel guilty. He’d never thought of himself as a person who could be seduced by the lure of gold. Then again, every last bar of that gold would go toward equipping his expedition to the Soulforge. Surely that was a noble enough cause. What’s more, the Thunsonn clan would be getting a good share of the gold, in any case-Kier’s share. Some of it would wind up in Eralynn’s pockets. Eventually.
Torrin followed Eralynn, stepping carefully over the clutter of stone that littered the canyon floor. They rounded the spur of rock that she’d indicated. Beyond it was an enormous, circular opening in the cliffside, obviously once part of the tunnel system of ancient Underhome. Ten times as tall as Torrin and equally as wide, the opening was ringed with a band of runes. Beyond those, the tunnel curved around to the right, out of sight. Its floor was littered with jagged bits of rock-debris that had fallen from the ceiling, either during the creation of the Underchasm nearly a century ago, or in its aftermath.
“I thought all of the entrances to Underhome were sealed,” Torrin said. He cast a glance at the towers above and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not going to let you defy the edicts!”
“ ‘Let’ me?” Eralynn said. Her eyes narrowed, and her fists went to her hips.
Torrin swallowed. Eralynn might be only as tall as his chest, but her rages could knock the stoutest dwarf back a pace or two. Still, Torrin stood his ground. “The Lord Scepter has decreed that-”
Eralynn laughed, startling him. “Oh, Torrin. Sometimes you can be so… ridiculously stubborn.”
He smiled, relieved to see that the storm had broken before it had begun. “Well, I am a dwarf, after all,” he said with a shrug. “We have a reputation for that.”
Eralynn smiled. “You don’t need to worry,” she said reassuringly. “We’re not going to do anything illegal, amusing though that might be. This portal led out of Underhome, not into it.”
“Are you finally going to tell me where it goes?”
Eralynn’s eyes glittered with anticipation. “The Wyrmcaves.”
“The Wyrmcaves!” Torrin gasped. “Why would our ancestors build a portal that led there?”
“As a trap,” she replied. “Whenever a dragon attacked, Underhome’s soldiers would pretend to flee through this portal. It links to a cavern barely big enough to accommodate a dragon, with a connecting bolthole just large enough for the soldiers to escape through. All they had to do then was wait for the dragon to die.”
“Clever.”
Eralynn laughed. “Not quite clever enough. Some of the smaller dragons escaped. According to some of the runelore I’ve read, that may be how the Wyrmcaves became a lair to dragons in the first place.”
“The wrym biting its tail full circle, hmm?” Torrin said. He stepped forward to examine the runes.
Eralynn grabbed his arm, yanking him back. “Wait!” she warned. “It’s protected by magic.” She released his arm and handed him two pieces of candle wax. “Use these to plug your ears and stand over there. And brace yourself.”
Torrin did as she’d instructed. Eralynn was the more experienced Delver, and he respected her greater knowledge. Some might find her too bossy, but it was her delve, after all. Torrin was simply along as an observer. He firmly pushed a ball of wax into each ear and stood where she’d indicated, then pulled from his pack the runestone he’d purchased from Kendril.
Eralynn walked toward the portal and raised her hands. As they entered the space between the circle of runes, thunder boomed out of the tunnel with such force that Torrin staggered back several paces. The faint lines of magical energy that glowed like veins on the backs of Eralynn’s hands flared outward, creating a shimmering blue wall of magical force in front of her. Even with his ears plugged, Torrin could hear the thunder reverberating back and forth between her magical shield and the bend of the tunnel.
A moment later, the magical shield faded away. Torrin dug the wax out of his ears. A chunk of rock fell from the ceiling of the tunnel, smashing to pieces on the floor. To Torrin, whose ears were ringing despite the protection, it sounded like a muffled thud.
Eralynn said something. Torrin only caught the last couple of words: “… not lethal,” she said.
“What?” he asked.
Eralynn grinned. She was busy tying back her hair, trying to rein in her mop of unruly blonde braids. As she pulled on a padded leather helmet, blue fire crackled in faint lines across the backs of her hands-the residue of the magic she’d just invoked.
“I said… not lethal,” she repeated. “When they built… portal, they… glyphs… look as though… portal led… important, somewhere… magical protection.”
Torrin shook his head and cracked his jaw. It didn’t help. The ringing in his ears was ebbing, but he still wasn’t hearing properly. “Is it safe to approach now?” he asked, realizing belatedly that he was shouting.
“Are you questioning my ability to deactivate a glyph?” she asked sternly.
He’d heard the whole sentence that time. “Of course not,” he said with a grin.
Eralynn’s leather armor creaked as she unslung the shield that was her trademark: a shield made from a single, enormous red dragon scale, rimmed with silver. Having found out where the portal led, Torrin could guess where she’d acquired that scale.
As Eralynn made her preparations, Torrin took a good look at the runes surrounding the portal. The inscription was a passage from an ancient dwarven saga: “Ready now, with swords in hand / Onward march, at my command / Soon, perhaps, to fight once more / Safe against the dragon’s roar.”
Torrin frowned. The first two lines were wrong. “Shouldn’t it be ‘Steady now, with swords in hand / Soldiers march, at my command?’ ” he asked.
Eralynn looked up from her preparations. “You’ve memorized the Faern sagas?” she said grinning. “You never cease to surprise me, Torrin. You’ve got a better memory for obscure poetry than most dwarves I know.”
“Is the inscription a clue to the incantation used to activate the portal?” he asked.